In recent years, the computer peripheral industry, the computer chip industry, and the computer software industry have joined together to create standards which have allowed standard hardware devices and interfaces to be developed. The standard devices and interfaces permit improved integration and communication between the computing devices and the computing peripheral devices. The emerging standard has become widely known as the Universal Serial Bus (USB) standard.
The USB standard permits peripherals to be readily connected to computing devices with virtually no manual configuration being required by an end user during initial setup. In effect, USB enabled devices allow seamless plug and play with one another. Generally, the USB architecture includes 5 primary components: USB ports on the USB enabled peripheral device and on the USB enabled computing device which is interfaced to the peripheral device, a USB cable connecting the peripheral device to the computing device via the USB ports, a USB device driver residing on the computing device which translates a request to access the peripheral device into a USB formatted request, a USB stack which is low-level data (e.g., stored in memory) and sets of executable instructions that manages the USB formatted request, and a USB host controller which interfaces with the USB stack and sends the USB formatted request across the USB cable to the peripheral device.
The USB host controller is embedded as electromechanical devices that reside on the computing device, within the addressable address space of the processing element or processing elements of the computing device. Moreover, the USB device driver and the USB stack are sets of executable instructions operable to execute on the processing element(s). The USB controller manages all communication occurring over the USB cable, allowing the peripheral to communicate directly with the computing device. Yet, the USB device driver communicates indirectly with the USB controller by interfacing all USB language formatted data requests through the USB stack.
As one skilled in the art appreciates, the USB standard has significantly improved peripheral interactions with a host computing device. However, the USB standard has substantial limitations on any end user's desired configuration of the host computing devices and the corresponding peripheral devices. For example, peripherals must normally be directly connected to the host computing devices, and the physical distance from the host computing devices to the peripheral devices is limited. As a result, end users have little success or options when there is a need to network USB peripheral devices to their computing devices, especially when any desired network occurs over a physical distance in excess of 5 meters, which is generally the maximum USB cable length available.
To alleviate this problem a number of techniques have been attempted. For example, USB bridges or USB cable extension boxes have been developed providing a hardware USB controller embedded in cables (e.g., USB bridges) or boxes (e.g., USB cable extension boxes) in order to increase the physical distance from which a host computing device can communicate with a peripheral device. Yet, this solution involves customized hardware and electro mechanical devices, and the solution still imposes physical distance limitations on the communications between the host computing device and the peripheral device.
In recent years, a technology, referred to as “thin clients,” has attempted to permit an end user to work on a severely constrained processing element to interact with one or more main processing elements, configured on a remote server. This gives the end user the illusion that he/she is working on a locally powerful processing element, while most communications are actually being processed remotely on the server. In some thin client architectures, the local end user's computing device and display include a USB port having the ability to connect an end user's local peripheral device to the local computing device by using a standard USB cable. However, the end user is still severely constrained as to the physical placement of the peripheral with respect to the local device. Further, the end user is still required to purchase and obtain customized hardware permitting the thin client architecture.
Therefore, what is needed is methods and systems for providing more flexible configurations and interactions associated with a peripheral device and an end user's local computing device.